Identifying a Typology of New York City Schools Through Teacher Perceptions of Organizational Capacity: A Latent Class Analysis

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to identify a typology of school organizational capacities using teachers’ perceptions of school organizational context. Employing a sample of New York City schools serving students in grades 3–8 (n = 1,289), we perform a 3-step latent class analysis (LCA). We identify six subgroups of schools: versatile (31%), demoralized (19%), developing (15%), collaborative, (13%), responsive (11%), and controlled (11%). These subgroups are associated with school and student characteristics. Controlling for these characteristics, teacher perceptions of school context are also associated with student outcomes. This typology has policy implications for those seeking to differentiate school supports.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

1. “District 75” schools are public schools throughout the city that serve students with severe academic and emotional needs. These schools are typically structured very differently from traditional public and charter schools, and their students are not subject to the same outcome measures as traditional public and charter school students.

2. New York State defines students as economically disadvantaged if the student and/or the student’s family participates in an economic assistance program, such as the free or reduced-price lunch programs, Social Security Insurance (SSI), Food Stamps, Foster Care, Refugee Assistance (cash or medical assistance), Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), Safety Net Assistance (SNA), Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), or Family Assistance: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). If one student in a family is identified as low income, all students from that household (economic unit) may be identified as low income.

3. New York State defines teachers as highly qualified if they hold at least a Bachelor’s degree, are certified to teach or otherwise in accordance with State standards in the subject area to which they are assigned, and show subject matter competency.

4. Given prior research asserting the malleability of school organizational context, we also do not consider a longitudinal measure of student achievement as our distal outcome. While we recognize analyses that link school organizational context to student learning would be compelling, it would be inappropriate to use a cross-sectional, and thus constant, measure of organizational context to this end. Longitudinal analyses that allow for the simultaneous exploration of change in organizational context and change in student outcomes, however, would be a promising next step.